The East Cape War, sometimes also called the East Coast War, refers to a series of conflicts that were fought in the North Island of New Zealand from about May 1865 to June 1868.

There were at least three separate unrelated campaigns fought in the area during a period of relative peace btween the main clashes of the MaoriWars, between the end of the Invasion of the Waikato, and beginning of Te Kooti's War[?].

The first and most notorious incident was the murder of missionary Carl Volkner[?] outside his church at Opotiki[?] on March 2, 1865, which came to be known as the Volkner Incident.

Since the Maori lived south of the Equator, at around forty degrees south latitude, they were in need of some type of clothing to protect them from both the heat and the cold, due to their temperate climate.

Wars were usually fought between tribes over land and property rights, since the land they used was not only for growing food and shelter, but it also was where a tribe buried their ancestors.

The canoe, for example, is associated in the Maori culture with migration, fishing, ancestry (because their ancestors came from canoes), and as the means of transportation for the dead to travel to the after-life.

Small regular colonial forces were first raised in Victoria in 1870, and in New South Wales in the following year, to fill the vacuum caused by the departure of the Royal Artillery which had been manning the coastal defences of New South Wales from 1856 and Victoria from 1861.

The Maoris themselves, however, were still a long way from being defeated and continued white encroachment on their lands made a second conflict inevitable.

The war was brought to an end in 1862 when Sir George Grey was recalled to calm the situation.

The Tauranga Campaign was the biggest of all the MaoriWars (politically correctly: The New Zealand Land Wars).

A Maori Pa was the equivalent to a British fortress, but it took the British until after the first world war to understand the difference between a fortress and a Pa. A "Pa" meant a village, and therefore Pa's, though built for defensive strength, were primarily residential.

www.mtholyoke.edu /~kerogers/classweb/Maoriwars.htm (1095 words)

ipedia.com: First Taranaki War Article(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)

The Battle of Puketakauere ranks with the Battle of Ohaeawai, FirstMaoriWar as one of the worst defeats suffered by the British troops in New Zealand.

Unlike their enemies the Maoris were only part time warriors; after a few weeks in the field, many of them necessarily had to return to their home base and attend to the business of living, matters like planting food crops.

The original cause of the war, the sale of the Waitara Block was to be investigated, by now many of the British had their doubts about the legality of the sale.

www.ipedia.com /first_taranaki_war.html (2660 words)

Maori Mythology(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)

About the middle of the last century certain Maori priests of some of the east coast tribes were consecrating classes in their school of sacred learning with prayers to Io-the-self-creative, a god unknown elsewhere in Polynesia.

She is presented at both the first woman and as a goddess who is guardian of the land of the dead.

Amongst the Maoris the planting and cultivating of the kumara (sweet potato) was accompanied by considerable ritual which culminated in the lifting of the crop by the priest when the appearance of the star called Whanui gave the signal for the harvest to begin.

Because the Maori tattooed the face, they had an unusual custom of removing and preserving the heads of their tattooed chiefs after death.

The first dried head to be possessed by a European was acquired on January 20, 1770.

The Rev. J.S. Wood says: "In the first place no man who was well tattooed was safe for an hour unless he was a great chief, for he might be at any time watched until he was off his guard and then knocked down and killed, and his head sold to the traders".

www.tattooarchive.com /history/maori_moko.htm (977 words)

Working Group 19 - Maori Pre-History(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)

The First Taranaki War was mainly fought between the extreme tribes that were heavily influenced by the King Movement.

The Maori were able to gain a victory in June 1860 by successfully defending the Puketakauere “pa.” However, after two strong British victories, the Maori and British signed a truce of the surrender of the Te Arei pa in March 1861.

To the Maori, it is known as te riri pakeha or “the white man’s anger.” This conflict lasted from 1864 to 1872 and was fought primarily by the Maori Hauhau warriors.

Australia's involvement in Vietnam was among the most divisive issues in Australia during the second half of the twentieth century, leaving a legacy of bitterness that continued long after the conclusion of the war.

Originally the objective for the first day of the Somme campaign, Bapaume was occupied by the 5th Division after fighting rearguards from the German retreat of early 1917.

This was the first Allied attempt to capture this major Turkish centre lying 32 kilometres inside the border of Palestine.

The Flagstaff War -- also known as Hone Heke's Rebellion, the Northern War and erroneously as the First Māori War -- was fought between 11 March 1845 and 11 January 1846 in and around the Bay of Islands, New Zealand.

Histories of the First Māori War tend to ignore the Battle of Te Ahu Ahu yet it was in some ways the most desperate fight of the entire war.

During the course of the whole war the British casualties were 82 killed and 164 wounded.

The stars are similar to those used on [Maori] "King" flags, and the green and fl device in the top left-hand corner was at first mistaken for the Union Jack.

It is a 4:5 red flag with a unusual UJ in the canton (quartered green and fl, over it a thin white saltire, and red cross frimbriated white over all), three fl, green and white four pointed stars on the upper fly, and two white bars at top hoist and bottom hoist.

The head of that movement during the 1860s, Potatau te Wherowhero, became the firstMaori king, Potatau I (his descendent Te Ataairangi Kaahu is the current Maori Queen).

In this, our first number, we have given a narrative of all the events, which have occurred at the Bay of Islands, from the commencement of the rebellious proceedings of Hone Heke down to the present time, inclusive of the despatches of Lieut.

I then immediately commenced firing in extended order on parties of natives who made their appearance, scattered on the hill to the left of the barracks, towards Onoro beach, and checked their advance on the barracks ; we were also fired upon from the rising ground behind the barracks.

We announced, in our last publication, the arrival of His Excellency Governor Grey from the seat of war, on the morning of Saturday last and the intelligence that Kawiti and Heke had been driven from the Pah of Ruapekapeka, which was subsequently destroyed.

Against resistance from the Maori, whalers, missionaries, and traders arrived, and in 1840, Britain formally annexed the islands and established New Zealand’s first permanent European settlement at Wellington.

The first recorded St. Patrick’s Day parade was held not in Ireland, but in New York City in 1762, and with the dramatic increase of Irish immigrants to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, the March 17th celebration became widespread.

Although Kelly's Ford was a Union defeat, it signaled a new phase of the cavalry war in the east.

The fact that such an event was recorded at the time is remarkable enough, but the story of how the fragile footage survived, was identified and lovingly restored by the Film Archives team of conservators and historians is testament to the important role that film plays in defining our culture and heritage.

The first public film screening in New Zealand was in Auckland on October 13, 1896.

So natural was it that the moving figures on the screen were cheered. Such a strong reaction to moving pictures was not unusual  audiences in Paris had been panic-stricken by the Lumieres film of a train that looked like it was coming off the screen and straight toward them.

Peter Bucks achievements are astonishing for their diversity: pioneering and internationally renowned anthropologist, the firstMaori medical doctor, a politician, administrator, soldier, sportsperson and leader of the Maori people.

As the first New Zealand athlete to win an Olympic gold, Jack Lovelock was edge spirit manifest, an enigmatic achiever whose running style was said to be 'artistic' in grace.

Her best work shakes itself free of plots and endings and gives the story, for the first time, the expansiveness of the interior life, the poetry of feeling, the blurred edges of personality.

Seated Maori allies and some British soldiers in the foreground, two groups of soliders in formation, and others lying at the crest of a rise in the middle distance firing towards the pa. Watercolour 242 x 325 mm.

The palisades are shown with rifle holes continously along the base to enable firing from behind protection; the English soldiers and their companion, on the other hand, are having to raise their heads above the earthworks to fire, with the exception of those on the far right, who are behind a Maori-style palisade.

Additional to the above images, several FirstMaoriWar period works by the two artists are held by the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ ; Hocken Library at the University of Otago, Dunedin, NZ ; and National Library of Australia.

In1846-47, during the firstMaoriwar in New Zealand the Governor, Sir George Grey, enrolled the Royal New Zealand Fencibles (or Pensioners) in Great Britain from British soldiers and sailors chosen on the basis of good conduct and physical fitness.

The first Detachment of New Zealand Enrolled Pensioners in the ship Ramillies under Captain Keey, Staff Officer, embarked on 14th April 1847 and landed on 5th August.

Gules, a chevron or between three owls affrontee proper, ducally crowed of the first, barbed and sealed gold, For crest, on a Wreath of the colors, an owl affrontee proper, ducally crowed and beaked or, mantled gules doubled argent and for motto - "Vita est vigilia".